This invention relates to devices for supporting medical instruments.
Surgical procedures, e.g., those involving arthroscopic surgery, require simultaneous use of numerous instruments by a physician. Often the procedure is complicated and one or more assistants may be required to hold one or more of the instruments in position. These assistants tend to congest the area around the operating table and restrict movement by the physician performing the surgery.
To address this problem, others have suggested arms to hold surgical equipment. For example, Milo (1975, U.S. Pat. No. 3,858,578) describes a flexible arm for holding surgical instruments, the joints of which can be simultaneously locked in place, using hydraulic pressure to tension a cable extending axially through the assembled arm elements. Poletti (1972, U.S. Pat. No. 3,638,973) and Kimoshita (1976, U.S. Pat. No. 3,986,692) describe jointed arms which can be fixed in position by hydraulic pressure.